Billy Wilder: InterviewsUniv. Press of Mississippi, 2001 - 200 pages Billy Wilder: Interviews edited by Robert Horton Always daring Hollywood censors' limits on content, Billy Wilder directed such greats as Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Ginger Rogers, Marlene Dietrich, Kirk Douglas, Audrey Hepburn, and Gary Cooper. Billy Wilder: Interviews follows the filmmaking career of one of Hollywood's most honored and successful writer-directors and spans over fifty years. Wilder, born in 1906, fled from Nazi Germany and established himself in America. In collected interviews this book traces his progress through his Oscar-winning heyday of the 1940s to the 1990s, in which he is still witty, caustic, and defiant. He tells the stories behind his brilliant direction of such classics as Double Indemnity (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Stalag 17 (1953), Sabrina (1954), The Seven-Year Itch (1955), Some Like It Hot (1959), and The Apartment (1960), among others. A dazzling raconteur, Wilder spins marvelous anecdotes on the subject of show business and delivers penetrating and instructive observations on his craft. On screen, his special blend of cynicism and romanticism was always expressed in a style that avoided showiness. Robert Horton is the film critic for The Herald in Everett, Washington. His work has been published in Film Comment, New York Newsday, American Film, and the Seattle Weekly. |
Contents
The Happiest Couple in Hollywood | 3 |
Why Not Be in Paris? | 18 |
In Wilders Wild West | 35 |
Wilder Yes We Have No Naked Girls | 60 |
Broadcast to Kuala Lumpur | 64 |
Two Damns and One By God | 81 |
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actor ALLYN Apartment asked audience Audrey Avanti Berlin Billy Wilder Billy Wilder Director Billy Wilder Screenplay Brackett & Wilder called camera Cast Charles Brackett Cinematography collaborator comedy critics cynical dialogue directed Doane Harrison Double Indemnity Ernst Lubitsch Fedora Fortune Cookie Gary Cooper German girl going Hollywood I. A. L. Diamond idea interview Irma La Douce Jack Lemmon kind Kiss living look Lost Weekend Marilyn Monroe minutes movie Music never Ninotchka once Oscar Paris Phyllis play Production Design QUESTION Reisch Reprinted by permission Sabrina scene screen screenwriter script Seven Year Itch Sherlock Holmes shooting shot Stalag 17 stars story Stroheim studio Stupid Sunset Boulevard talk television tell theater there's thing thought tion told Vienna Walter Matthau wanted Wilder and I. A. L. William Holden writing wrote young